Matapalo Soccer Team

I have been volunteering as a soccer coach for a 5th and 6th graders in a little town called Matapalo, near Playa Grande. I got set up with the team through an organization called CEPIA, that helps underprivileged kids in the area. Basically, the CEPIA people gave me some soccer balls, some cones, and a whistle, and wished me good luck. The previous coach quit after a few weeks because he got injured and had a tough time understanding the kids.
My first experience with the Matapalo team really intimated me. Half of the team was barefooted and did not have shirts. Kids were eating candy, wrestling, cussing in Spanish, and when I spoke to them they barely listened. The kids didn't speak a word of English, so everything had to be said in Spanish. My first practice was difficult, but I survived.
For my next practice I prepared a lot of drills ahead of time and wrote them down on a piece of paper. This worked like a charm, and my second practice was much smoother. The little town of Matapalo is centered around the soccer field. There is a grocery store, some bars, a church, a school, and not much else. Once a dog chased a few horses directly across the soccer field. Another time, after a scrimmage, the kids insisted on having a penalty shootout since the score was tied. I agreed, although I didn't think about the fact that the goal we were shooting on had no net and was right in front of a grocery store. One of the kids made a great penalty shot that blasted through the goal, and headed directly for a man who was drinking a beer in front of the grocery store, knocking it out of his hand of course. Everyone cheered a lot when that happened.
Costa Ricans live for soccer, and Matapalo is no exception. Since the town is built around the soccer field, there are always old men, kids, drunks, grandmothers, and construction workers checking out the practices. When we scrimmage, a lot of the "borrrachos" start making calls and criticizing my reffing. Some even have their own whistles that they blow. One day we received a few new soccer balls from CEPIA, and the kids were so excited. However, Axcel, one of the 14 year olds on the team (there are some very old 6th graders in Costa Rica), blasted the ball across the field and into the street. Of course a car was speeding by at the exact same time, and it nailed the soccer ball, causing a very loud "POP!" The whole town laughed and applauded, and it was probably the most exciting thing that happened in Matapalo all week. Some of the kids took the flat soccer ball and took turns putting it on their heads like a helmet and running around.
One thing that I have been working with my team on a lot is cussing and pushing. I speak Spanish pretty well, so I understand a cuss word in Spanish when I hear it. I know that a lot of kids say bad words when they play sports, but it started rubbing me the wrong way when every other word that these kids would say was a swear word. Finally I started cracking down on cussers, and makingkids sit out practices if they cussed too much or pushed too much. It seems to be working so far.
Our team as already scrimmaged a local "soccer gang," and it was very exciting. They played against a group of kids who basically formed their own little neighborhood team. I made everything very official, from the coin toss, to kick-off, to the corner kicks. It was great to see how much they enjoyed it, and the whole town of Matapalo was definitely cheering (and criticizing my reffing) during this game. Today I made the players write letters to people in San Luis Obispo, California, telling them who they are, and asking them to donate old soccer equipment if possible. They wrote excellent letters, and then scrimmaged the soccer game again. A lot of players had to leave early for music class, because there was a big parade that they had to do around town (one thing that public schools here take very seriously is music class). Our scrimmage went OK, except that whenever the parade walked behind the goals, I stopped the game for fear of hitting someone (this really aggravated the players). I am really enjoying bonding with the local kids in the community, and I feel like I have a great opportunity to help them out with something that is important to them, and sneak in a few lessons about building good character along the way.

We are well into the rainiest part of the rainy season, and it's actually not that bad. There have been a few days of heavy, nonstop rain, not to mention flooded roads and collapsed bridges. Still, there have been plenty of sunny days as well. For example, last weekend we had a three day weekend for Culture Day, and we went to a different, sunny beach each day. There should only be about 2 more weeks of the rainy season left, and then hopefully it will be summer.
We are also feeling pretty acclimated to the heat and humidity. Today there was a scheduled blackout all day (the government does that every once in a while to save energy). We managed to survive, even without A/C in our classes. Also, we had parent/teacher conferences this week, and thankfully those are all over.
Our dog keeps growing and getting more and more personality. A few days ago I went surfing and she followed me pretty far out into the water. I decided to put her on my surfboard and push her into a wave, and she actually surfed for about a second. The best thing about taking Isa to the beach is that she is tired for hours after we get back.
Tonight we had tuna sashimi at our house. There is a guy who comes to our school and sells fish out of his truck every week. His fish is so fresh, and he sells it for really cheap, so it works out nicely.
I have been coaching a soccer team once a week in a nearby town called Matapalo. There is a group of 5 and 6 graders who come every Tuesday, and they range in age from about 10 to 15 years old. It's not like your typical soccer practice in the states, because half of the kids are eating candy, cussing in Spanish, or playing barefoot the whole time. Still, they are good kids and I think that they get something out of it.
There is plenty of nature and wildlife here. There are howler monkeys that live in the trees behind our house that make a lot of noise in the morning and at night time. The baby howler monkeys are really cute. There are also big raccoon/anteater type animals called pozotes that we see quite a lot. We have seen many different birds, from hawks to herons. There are iguanas and other large lizards that crawl out to bask in the sun everyday. Finally, there are plenty of large insects, like the very strong rhinoceros beetles. One of my students brought one into my class in a cardboard box to share. The box was taped up very tightly, but the rhinoceros beetle was still able to push it open and almost get out. Allie had an unfortunate encounter when she stepped on a scorpion after she got out of the shower. She said it felt like a really bad bee sting. We have both been a lot more paranoid about walking around barefoot since that happened.

The good life

The school year has been flying by and we are loving life in Guanacaste. Our puppy, Isa, is growing a lot. She loves to go for walks, dig holes, chew up plants, eat bugs, play fetch, bark at the security guards, visit with other teachers' dogs, eat, bite your hand with her needle teeth and sleep. Isa seemed to be house trained, although she has regressed this past week. She has had her first two series of vaccinations, so she is finally allowed to go places, such as the beach (there are many fatal dog diseases here that wipe out a lot of dogs). Isa loves the beach. She is a great swimmer, although she was scared of the water at first. She also like digging up sand and chasing coconuts.
We have also had more car problems, as usual. Right now our car is getting a new radiator, because the old one was ancient, and kept overheating. It has been very hard to find a good mechanic around here, but the most recent one we went to seems reliable.
One of the perks of teaching at CDS is that you get free membership to the Conchal Melia resort. The resort is right by the school, and people usually have to pay a few hundred dollars a night to stay there. There are really nice pools, tennis courts, golf courses, gyms, and beach access. It is part of the Reserva Conchal, which means that there hundreds of acres of land surrounding and secluding the property. We mainly go there to use their gym, but we have also gone to hang out by the pool.There are shuttles that pick you up and take you wherever you want to go on the property.

Everything is butterflies!

Well, 2 weeks of school have wrapped up here in Guanacaste and so far, so good! We are really enjoying all of our new coworkers and our new principal as well. The expat community is really thriving in this area and everyone we have met has been warm and welcoming to us. Joe has gotten to surf a lot more then he did when we were living in Escazu and I have started to take a pilates class. The warm weather (even when it rains) makes it easier to be outside and active.

We have been getting to know the wildlife here a lot more and frequently wake to the sound of howler monkeys in the trees by our house. I saw fireflies for the first time recently and it was the closest to magic I've ever come across. The butterflies in the region are abundant as well. I see butterflies of different shapes and colors every single day. It sure is something to walk out of your house and see 10 buttermilk colored creatures gliding around! There is also a toad that lives in a drain near us, and a large iguana that lives in another drain. Some of the wildlife isn't so pleasant though. There are a ton of wasps that make nests everywhere. We both found multiple nests in our classrooms while cleaning and have had to knock down a few around our house as well. The other not so pleasant creature living in our new home is scorpions. While I have only come across one very small scorpion, Joe was surprised by a scorpion perched on his shoulder about a week ago. YIKES! Another wild creature entered our lives a few weeks ago. We adopted a puppy! Her name is Isabel (EEsabel) and she was one of 3 female puppies that a little TIco family had to give up. While we haven't a clue what kind of dog she is, or even how big she will become, we sure have been enjoying her!

We are looking forward to exploring our new home even more soon!

The Move

We had a very eventful summer, with trips to Nicaragua and all over Costa Rica. Our friends Robin and Ty both came down to Costa Rica, and during that time we went to La Paz, Arenal, Playa Hermosa, Manuel Antonio, and Ty and I even went down to Dominical and Matapalo to get some waves. In July we went back to the States for just over three weeks, and it was refreshing to visit all of our friends and family back home. When we returned to Escazu we were incredibly busy taking our car in for repair after repair, and of course packing up all of our things to move out to Guanacaste. During that time we also got to show my mom and sisters around Escazu, and we met up with them later in Guanacaste as well.
Packing and moving is always very stressful, and this was no exception. Plus we only had a few days to fix about a million problems that our Toyota was experiencing, including leaking power steering fluid, a back window and door that won't open, replacing our stolen CD player, fixing our air conditioner again, getting our starter fixed once again, and trying to figure out what the weird noise underneath our car was (actually we had about 4 weird noises going on under the car, but one was particularly bad). Unfortunately the mechanics that we went to did not have time to fix most of these problems, or they couldn't figure how to fix them, but we did take care of the most important one: the bad noise underneath our car was our differential, which was stripped and loose, and Jorge the mechanic fixed this the day before we moved.
We loaded up tons of suitcases, boxes, and surfboards into and on top of our car on the day that we left. Our guard Joaquin was very helpful at lashing things down to the roof, and somehow we managed to load everything up. As if we hadn't been scrambling around frantically enough before, a new hurdle emerged in front of our moving trip at the very last minute. A bridge on the way to Guanacaste was closed down, and we needed to cross it. We heard rumors that the whole bridge had collapsed, and had this been the case, our five hour trip could have turned into a 10 hour trip. We decided to chance it and take that route anyway, and our bold move paid off. The bridge had only cracked, it had not toppled down. There was only one lane open because of the repairs that were being made, but we only had to wait about 5 minutes to get across. A couple of hours later we arrived at Country Day School Guanacaste, near the town of Brasilito. We began to unpack our things and settle into our new place, happy that all of the moving was behind us.